


Seth'lin

by taispeantas_laethuil



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Family, Fantastic Racism, Halward Pavus' A+ Parenting, Multi, Pairings are more worldstate than anything else, Slavery, Solas POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4162179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dorian's mother is not Lady Pavus, Kieran has the soul of an Old God but is still ten, and Solas is old. </p><p>Really old. </p><p>Old as balls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Details are in the end notes, but built into the premise of the prompt is the idea of having sex and children with your slaves. Nothing is discussed in any detail, but that's a thing that happened, and as always, if you feel like that might be triggering for you, feel free to exercise self care and back button the fuck out.

Solas had avoided the gardens since Morrigan and her child had all but taken up residence there: the boy was not only the grandson of Mythal, but the vessel for one of the (unfortunately not) Forgotten Ones. He didn’t want to risk being recognized, and with Kieran still being, for all intents and purposes, a ten-year-old boy with a child’s sense of discretion, being recognized would be tantamount to being exposed.  
  
That wasn’t to say that he ignored him entirely. But he mostly stayed hidden out of sight, and was always out of the range of human hearing.  
  
But not elven hearing. No, he could always hear exactly what was going on, even over the siren song of the Eluvian.  
  
It was spring when it happened: late spring for most of Fereldan and Orlais, but just past the first thaw for the Frostbacks. As he settled in, he listened as Cullen conceded his chess match to Dorian, and the Inquisitor had such an inaccurate conversation with Morrigan about the Eluvian that it took all of his will power to keep from descending the stairs and correcting them.  
  
Then Kieran and Dorian started speaking, which drew his attention.  
  
“It’s alright,” Dorian said. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not going to use blood magic on you, even if you point and stare at me out in the open instead of in the shadows.”  
  
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Kieran. “And you don’t use blood magic.”  
  
Though he had no intention of ever admitting such to any living soul, he had to admit, there seemed to be something inevitable about the vessel for the Old God of Beauty being drawn to Dorian.  
  
“Well, I’m glad somebody believes me when I say that,” Dorian replied.  
  
“Oh, I would know, even if you didn’t say so.”  
  
“You would, would you?”  
  
“Yes, I would,” Kieran replied earnestly. “I know a lot from people’s blood.”  
  
“… you may not want to say that to just anyone,” Dorian suggested.  
  
“Oh I don’t say it to just anyone,” Kieran assured him.  
  
“Well, I’m very flattered to be the exception."  
  
“You’ve got the same kind of blood as me," Kieran added. “Old and new mixed together.”  
  
Solas remembered, suddenly, vividly, another eavesdropped conversation, one which took place between Kieran and the Inquisitor.  
  
_“Mother never told me the Inquisitor was an elf.”_  
  
_“The ears gave me away, didn’t they?”_  
  
_“No. Your blood is **very** old. I saw it right away.”_  
  
Solas inhaled sharply upon the revelation.  
  
“Your father,” Dorian said, too evenly to be trusted. “He’s the Hero of Fereldan, yes?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“There were always rumors,” Dorian continued distantly. “But you never quite know what to believe in Tevinter.”  
  
Solas risked a look into the gardens. Kieran was facing away from him, and he could not get a good look at Dorian’s facial expression. Still, his body language was a clear enough mix of defensiveness and defeat. This wasn’t a revelation for him, nor was it the exposure of a secret: instead it was a confirmation of a suspicion which he had long held to his chest.  
  
Then Dorian looked up. Their eyes didn’t quite meet before Solas ducked his head back down.  
  
“I’m the only one of us I’ve met who got his old blood from his father,” Kieran confided. “Everyone else has a new father and an old mother: Michel de Chevin, King Alistair-”  
  
“What?” Dorian squawked, before lowering his voice enough that Solas had to strain to hear him. “I- I had heard that his mother had been a commoner, but I thought she was human.”  
  
“It’s Grand Enchanter Fiona,” Kieran said, in a whisper that was barely quieter than his normal speaking voice. “They’ve got the same blood, I can tell.”  
  
“That’s something else you shouldn’t say to just anyone,” Dorian advised. “You might kick off another war.”  
  
“I only tell the people like us,” Kieran promised.  
  
“…quite.”  
  
There was the scrape of metal on stone.  
  
“Well, I really have to dash,” Dorian said. “I suppose I’ll see you around..?” His voice trailed off.  
  
“I’m Kieran,” Kieran introduced himself. “Kieran Surana.”  
  
“And I’m Dorian, of House Pavus,” Dorian replied. “Pleased to make you acquaintance, but I really must be going now.”  
  
Solas chanced another look, and watched Dorian flee the gardens, his long human legs carrying him smoothly out into the main courtyard of Skyhold without making it seem like he was running at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Dorian did not return to the library for three days following that conversation. He was, Solas gathered from the half-admiring, half-concerned chatter that filled the main halls of Skyhold, going on a bender the apparently only ended when the Bull’s curtains went up in flames. The Bull was apparently exuberant. Dorian was apparently appalled by his lover’s lack of discretion. The rest of Skyhold apparently put the bender down to some kind of relationship woes that had since been successfully repaired.

Solas did not.

Instead, Solas looked back upon his interactions with the Altus, trying to make this new information fit. There wasn’t a lot to make it fit around- there were no anomalies in his behavior which suddenly had cause, no physical quirks whose origins were now made clear. Dorian of House Pavus was still Dorian of House Pavus, in all his sarcastic utterly human glory. If it weren’t for the emotion belayed by his response to having his parentage confirmed, Solas would have been content to ignore the information entirely. Sera was proof enough that blood did not count for much if the upbringing had been so thoroughly human.

But Dorian had reacted strongly, and Solas couldn’t help but wonder if he suspected who his mother was.

He also couldn’t help but remember the first of the elf-human hybrids he had encountered, many centuries ago, when he’d first woken up after what the Dalish apparently called The Betrayal. She had been an Altus as well, a battle-scarred woman fresh from fighting Avvars in what was now Fereldan. He had regarded her as little more than a well-intentioned parasite, distinctive from her countrymen in that she was open about her desire to copy what the People already knew, instead of being told in secret and then branding it a human innovation.

She’d had to explain it to him- that her desire to learn came from the fact that she’d never been permitted to know of her mother’s people. That having a child by an elven slave woman was a fashion among Tevinter’s elite- magic still ran strongly through the People’s blood then, even if it was no longer a sure thing, and as such children tended to look human…

He wondered if it was still a fad, or if perhaps all knowledge of such a practice had been stricken from the Imperium’s genealogical records. From the way Dorian reacted, he would guess that it was no longer something people looked kindly upon, anywhere in Thedas, the Imperium included.

He didn’t bring it up. It was hardly the most important revelation he had to deal with: they were preparing to take Adamant Fortress from the Grey Wardens, and then their conflict with Corypheus was sure to come to a head sooner rather than later.

Would he carry the orb with him? Would Solas be able to retrieve it? Would Corypheus recognize him? What would he do if the truth came out?

What would the Inquisitor do?

The subject of Dorian’s heritage was a more pleasant line of thought to follow as he painted than questions about the future he was growing more and more uncertain about, even if he had no intention of pursuing it.

He couldn’t help but study the man when they next went out together, however, and there was plenty of opportunity to do so: Lavellan wanted to clear out the Hissing Wastes of Venatori ahead of the Inquisition’s troops invasion of the Western Approaches. The Hissing Wastes were an inhospitable desert populated with any number of predatory creatures and rifts, large numbers of Venatori guarded by large numbers of Red Templars, and there were rumors of a high dragon as well. So, naturally, the Inquisitor left with herself, Solas, Dorian, Cassandra, Varric, and the Iron Bull, six people to clear an area of resistance that could not easily be cleared by an army.

And yet, he had every confidence that they would succeed. They all did.

It was a long journey, and it afforded him more than enough opportunities to study Dorian, and realize that there was at least one physical quirk that must have originated from his mother: his eyes.

Dorian’s eyes were light colored, and that was about the most concrete thing that could be said about them. They changed to suit the outfit he wore, which made Solas suspect some kind of glamour was at play: thus far, they had been grey, gold, hazel, honey…

And every night, as the fire died, they were green, a dull echo of way an elf’s eyes would glow in the absence of bright light.

He wondered how well Dorian could see in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

There was another physical quirk that came to Solas’ attention four days into their stay, when he and Dorian fell into a ravine.  
  
The ravine in question was not fatally deep, thankfully enough- perhaps thirty feet or so, and for two powerful and quick mages such as themselves, it was barely trouble- he bruised a few ribs, Dorian sprained an ankle. The panicked, angry gurn that had caused the overhang they’d been standing on to collapse and was similarly unaffected by the fall was of much greater concern.  
  
"Dorian!” the Bull bellowed, barely contained panic in his tone. “Dorian!  
  
“Solas!” the Inquisitor called, sounded no less frightened, which was… not a helpful observation to be making at the moment. Or ever.  
  
Dorian replied by swearing a blue streak in Tevene, the language different enough from what was spoken a millennium ago that he only got the general gist of what was said: either an insult to the Bull’s mother, or the gurn’s mother, or an implication that they were one and the same.  
  
The Bull laughed, relieved. Solas froze the gurn in its tracks, and then called forth a veilstrike. The gurn’s armored hide cracked open, and Dorian immolated the beast.  
  
“We’re both alive and mobile, Inquisitor,” Solas called up. “I think we can leave the ravine under our own power.”  
  
“Healing potions?” she asked.  
  
Dorian shook his head.  
  
“I’ve got a regeneration potion,” Solas replied. “That should be enough for both of us.”  
  
“We’ll meet up by the logging camp, then,” the Inquisitor replied. “Stay safe.”  
  
Solas drank the regeneration potion, and helped Dorian to his feet, the other man needing a little help to move while Dagna’s latest concoction did its work, the healing powers of the potion moving out in ambient waves along his aura.  
  
They were silent for a time. And then, after even the Bull’s heavy footfalls had faded from his hearing, Dorian spoke.  
  
“You’re not going to start being nice to me now, I hope?”  
  
Solas cocked his head curiously.  
  
“Sera would never forgive it, and she actually likes me in _spite_ of who I am,” Dorian explained.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Solas hedged. “I’m merely helping you after an injury. It’s nothing we haven’t done for one another many times before, and I’m sure the opportunity for you to repay the favor will present itself shortly.”  
  
“Maker’s breath, are you playing dumb? Feigning ignorance? _Not_ acting as a know-it-all?” Dorian demanded.  
  
“Or I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Solas suggested. “Perhaps you hit your head when we fell?”  
  
“I saw you in the gardens, that day,” Dorian said. “You were trying to hide on the ramparts overlooking things, but the glare from your head gave you away. And I know we were in earshot.”  
  
Solas was considering the pros and cons of continuing his deception when he suddenly remembered their fight against the Northern Hunter in Crestwood. They had gone searching for the dragon, and the Bull had been almost obscene in his eagerness to fight the creature: but he, Dorian, and Lavellan had heard her approach long before the warrior was able to. Solas had considered it a fault in Qunari hearing relative to both elves and human, and Dorian had teased the Bull about it all the way back to camp, defensive cover for a truth he wasn’t ready to accept.  
  
Well, enough of that, Solas decided. Until they returned to the others, they would have as much truth as they could.  
  
“You have excellent hearing,” he said at last.  
  
“Yes, I do,” Dorian agreed, pulling away and resuming his limping way forwards under his own power. “Inhumanly good, or so I’ve been accused, apparently only half-falsely.”

“You were never told, I take it?” Solas asked.  
  
“No, of course not,” Dorian snorted bitterly. “I couldn’t be trusted to keep my own indiscretions under wraps- on the grounds that to do so would be to lie about my nature, no less. What might I have done with the knowledge that my father had had me by one of his elven slaves?”  
  
It was a rhetorical question, but Solas was curious to its answer. “What would you have done?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Dorian replied. “I don’t know. Had her freed, probably? Brought her with me when I fled the country if that failed, perhaps? I don’t know.”  
  
“Do you know who she is?” Solas asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Dorian repeated. “I don’t know anything, really- Kieran isn’t exactly authoritative confirmation, even if half the rumors circulating Tevinter about him are true.”  
  
“But you have your suspicions,” Solas pressed.  
  
“Her name is Metrodora,” Dorian told him after a moment. He turned his face upwards, contemplating, the light from the moons (waning gibbous and waxing crescent, respectively) hitting his eyes, and turning them green. “For the longest time, I called her ‘mater’. Ostensibly, this was because when I was first learning to talk I couldn’t wrap my mouth around Metrodora, but I can’t recall ever believing that story. Still, that’s not anything that doesn’t happen when you leave your children to be raised by the staff. She was my wet nurse. There aren’t any children- or other children- around my age. She’s never claimed to have children at all. The logical presumption would be that she suffered a miscarriage, or a still birth.”  
  
Dorian stopped walking. Solas waited.  
  
“She lives on our Asariel estate- she has rooms in the main wing of the house, near where my nursery used to be. It’s right off the office my father uses for paperwork reasons,” Dorian said finally. “Our holdings in Asariel are the ones closest to Minrathous, and being Magister Pavus is no easy task. It’s not unusual for him to work there long into the night, or even overnight. They’re nice rooms, especially by slave standards. They’re her reward for raising me, or-”  
  
Dorian fell silent, and once more Solas waited.  
  
“And then there’s the beauty mark,” Dorian said, a forced lightness to his tone. He tapped the mole on his cheek. “We both have it- but that’s pure coincidence. What else could it be?” He shook his head. “It’s about as coincidental as Kieran talking about blood being mixed in me like it is in him and Michel de Chevin, and not be referring to all of us being elf-blooded.”  
  
“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Ser Michel speak of either of his parents,” Solas remarked.  
  
“He doesn’t have to. I can tell,” Dorian said. “There were a lot of elf-blooded students in the Vyrantium Circle- acknowledge and unacknowledged illegitimate children of various Magisters by elven lovers, some of whom were even freemen. Once I began to suspect… I used to try and pick out their ‘elfy parts’ as Sera would put it, so I could look at my reflection later and reassure myself that it couldn’t be true. Look, I would say to myself, my ears are round, my neck is of average length, and my cheekbones could cut glass, but in a very human way. There’s nothing about me that’s elven… except for the beauty mark, and the hearing.”  
  
“And the fact that your eyes turn green in the low light,” Solas said.  
  
“They…do?” Dorian asked. “I never noticed.”  
  
“You are unlikely to check your reflection in poor lighting,” Solas pointed out. “And given how frequently you use glamours to change your eye color, I imagine that it’s gone unremarked upon by anyone who has seen you in such circumstances.”  
  
Dorian made a thoughtful noise. “Do you suppose I can see better in the dark than I would if I were fully human?” he asked.  
  
“Quite possibly,” Solas said. “You have yet to trip over anything, even with your weak ankle. Most humans would not be able to say the same.”  
  
“It’s not _that_ dark out,” Dorian protested. A beat later he added “I’ve just proved your point, haven’t I?”  
  
Solas nodded.  
  
“So… nothing elven about me except for the beauty mark, the hearing, and the fact that I can see better in the dark than the average human,” Dorian amended. “Lucky me.”

“Is it so terrible, for you to have an elf for a mother?” Solas asked him.  
  
“Well, it certainly won’t make anyone back home more inclined to take me seriously,” Dorian replied. “Personally speaking … I have less a problem accepting that my mother is an entirely different woman than I was raised to believe, and more that my father is a different man than I believed him to be.”  
  
“How so?” Solas asked. “You have just admitted that it wasn’t unusual for magisters to have children out of wedlock with their slaves.”  
  
“ _Illegitimate_ children, not heirs,” Dorian reminded him. “And my father… you have to understand. There are standards of behavior, matters of principle, which House Pavus adheres to which most of the Imperium- or most of the Altus class, at least- would considered silly, or squeamish, or weak, even if they would claim to adhere to those standards as well, in unguarded company. It’s the motto of House Pavus: _esse quam videri_ , to be rather than to seem. When I came of age at sixteen, before the debut galas and introductory bacchanalias, my father passed the Pavus birthright on to me and explained to me some of the obligations that placed on my personal life, and he went in great detail about how great a failure it would be, if I ever took a slave into my bed, or even an employee, or an apprentice. The imbalance of power is too great: there was every chance that social climbers from every level would try to latch on to me with sex, and there was no way for me to tell whether the person I was with would be trying to use me, or have any affection for me, or would simply not know whether or not they could turn me down.” Dorian smiled crookedly. “That’s when I first told him that I was interested in men, and only men. Things spiraled rapidly out of control from there.”  
  
“You didn’t suspect then?” Solas checked.  
  
“No. No, that came later, after Father and I had been arguing for a time. It was one of those thoughts you have when you’re trying to drown your temper in alcohol, but it wouldn’t leave me alone, even after I’d recovered from the hangover. It stayed there, like a scab demanding to be picked.” Dorian sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I keep trying to imagine how it happened. I’m an only child- he must have decided to have me by Mater rather than Mother, rather than my being an accident. Was there some kind of affection involved, on either of their parts? Or did he just order it, like he wanted dinner to be brought up to his office, and refused to consider emotions at all? That seems more likely- he would have framed it as a kind of punishment for himself, to not pretty it up. He was going to perform the blood ritual himself, you know, for exactly that reason. If he was going to go against his principles, then he didn’t deserve the comfort of hiding behind an intermediary. He was quite proud of himself for that.”  
  
“He still owns her,” Solas said.  
  
“He still owns her,” Dorian confirmed grimly. “She still sleeps in that suite next to his office. For all I know, he still- _venhedis_.”  
  
Dorian leaned heavily against the stone walls of the ravine. “ _Venhedis kaffan vas._ ”

Solas stood there, bereft of any comfort to offer him. It was not as though he couldn’t imagine what he was going through- he didn’t have to imagine it, the moment when you realized that the people you looked up to, that you admired and respected and loved were not merely fallible, but had failed, were failing, and would continue to fail unless they were stopped.

That they had to be stopped.  
  
That had always been the problem with Dorian- it was too easy to look at him and see himself, when he had been a young man, newly-formed from the countless moments when countless voices had lost faith in Elgar’nan and Mythal, or in Zazikel and Andoral, had taken to howling into the Beyond to anything that would listen ‘free us, save us, avenge us, give us justice, give us change, give us revolution’.  
  
He had been discovered by the Creators, and brought up to become one of them. He hadn’t fit, had noticed enough corruption to make his peers uncomfortable, and then was if not explicitly cast out, then made unwelcome enough to flee his home.  
  
He’d fled to Tevinter, to their Old Gods, the Forgotten Ones, hoping to discover something better, and mostly finding variations on the same themes. Dragons were the embodiments of deities, rather than their avatars, and the somniari and their descendants ruled over mage and non-mage alike, but there was the same misery and strife, the same stink of slavery and oppression masked by the never-ending conflict between Arlathan and Minrathous, Creators and Old Gods.  
  
He’d ended it, and doomed the People to slavery. He’d tried to fix that, and created the Darkspawn. He’d tried to fix that, and created the Chantry, and the Dalish. And now he’d woken again, just as lonely as the first time he’d left Uthenera after his Betrayal, with all his old mistakes coming back to haunt him: the Veil torn asunder, Corypheus attempting to usurp godhood with a vigor than put Ghilan’nain to shame, and a Dalish elf hailed as the Herald of Andraste.  
  
And Dorian, who was young, angry, and determined to save the country who had all but exiled him from its own corruption. Dorian, who did not have centuries to unlearn what he had been taught- did not even have one century, in all likelihood.  
  
“You cannot undo what has already been done,” Solas reminded him. “And it is not to you to pay for your father’s crimes.”  
  
“Isn’t it?” Dorian replied.  
  
Before Solas could reply, they heard a scuffling noise from further down the ravine, which quickly resolve itself into the Bull’s unevenly thudding steps and the Inquisitor’s quick, light tread.  
  
“We’ve taken too long, it seems,” Dorian observed.  
  
“That would seem to be the case.”  
  
Neither of them moved, until the pair of them arrived, concern writ large across their features.  
  
“Is everything alright?” the Inquisitor asked. The Bull merely looked between the two of them, considering: Dorian had already told him about it, he surmised.  
  
“Yes,” Dorian replied. “No. It’s nothing pressing, though- I’ll have to tell you later.”  
  
“All…right?” Lavellan said. “Can we go back to camp, or are you two bonding?”  
  
Solas and Dorian exchanged looks.  
  
“I think we’ve hit the limit of our bonding,” Solas told her. 

Dorian nodded vigorously.  
  
“Then back to camp we go,” Lavellan said. “Scout Harding swears up down and sideways that she’s got a new stew recipe to try.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude with the Bull.

Dorian was quiet, and the Bull was pretending to be falling asleep. He wasn’t tried at all, actually- he was too worried about whatever it was that was eating Dorian. He just couldn’t help but get the impression that _whatever_ was personal, and Dorian was always more comfortable discussing personal when he could pretend the other person couldn’t hear, and the person in question could pretend they hadn’t heard in turn.   
  
“Sorry,” Dorian said finally. “About the curtains.”  
  
“Liar,” the Bull teased, letting a hint of a yawn drag at the words. Dorian went very still, which wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for. He plowed through to explain the jibe. “You’ve hated those curtains from the moment you laid eyes on them.”   
  
Dorian snorted and relaxed somewhat, though there was still more tension than his body should be carrying at the moment.   
  
The Bull was wondering if maybe he shouldn’t suggest trying to light his pants on fire next- the relief Dorian would get from sex would be only temporary, but maybe a little temporary release would keep him from continuing whatever kind of spiral he’d been on these past few days- when Dorian spoke.   
  
“I’m not human,” he said.   
  
_Demon_ , the Bull thought, and then he hesitated.   
  
His axe was right there and he hesitated. Because Dorian wasn’t doing anything demonic, he was just… being Dorian, only very hurt.   
  
The Bull didn’t like seeing Dorian hurt.  
  
“How do you mean?” the Bull asked evenly.   
  
“There’s a woman in Asariel,” Dorian said, which threw him a little. “An elven slave- my wet nurse. She sleeps in a suite next my father’s office, has absolutely no family to speak of, more or less raised me from birth, and has a beauty mark.”  
  
He tapped the mole on his own cheek, and the Bull _got it_. Dorian wasn’t possessed. He was just elf-blooded.   
  
“Oh,” he said.   
  
“Oh,” Dorian repeated incredulously. “That’s it, just _oh_?”  
  
“Well, you led with 'not human', so I thought you’d been turned in an abomination and I was going to have to kill you, so while I know this is shitty for you, it’s kind of a relief for me,” the Bull explained.   
  
Dorian laughed in a way that was very close to tears.   
  
“Did you just find out?” the Bull asked, wrapping an arm around him.   
  
Dorian let himself be pulled up against the Bull’s side and nodded.   
  
“Letter from your father?” the Bull guessed.   
  
“Thankfully not, no,” Dorian said. “Though I may very write one to him regarding this, soon. She’s still a slave, you see.”  
  
“Ah,” the Bull said. “Going to ask for her freedom?”  
  
“Yes, of course,” Dorian said. He snorted bitterly. “It’s the done thing _and_ the right thing!”  
  
“That right?”  
  
“She gave birth to a mage, that should have done it,” Dorian told him. He snorted again, and began pulling away. “Not that they could have admitted it, I suppose. _Fasta vass_ , what would have happened if I hadn’t been a mage? Or if I couldn’t pass as fully human? Would we _both_ still be there? Would he have tried again and again and again until he got the heir he wanted? _Will_ he try again, now that he knows he’s failed with me?”

Dorian got out of bed and started putting his clothes back on, more a way to use some of that nervous energy than any real desire to leave, the Bull could tell.   
  
“Why did I just realize it now? I’ve suspected for years, I could have asked her a dozen times over to confirm those suspicions, I almost _did_ ask her, on my way out. Nearly went straight from his office into her rooms after that last argument, but I knew I needed to leave quickly, and what could I _say_ in the space of a few minutes? What if she’d tried to talk me out of going? What if she tried to confront Father about it? What do I do now? I can’t just leave her there, but is it fair to drag her into the middle of the Inquisition? And how would she even get here? What if- what if he decides that she’s a _liability_ and that I can’t expose what he did if she’s- if she’s dead? It’s not as though I have any kind of confirmation that can be admitted to court. What do I do, Bull?”  
  
The Bull had about eight different ideas about how to manage the risks involved in contacting his father, but Dorian was in no fit state to be politicking, and two of those ideas pretty much boiled down to ‘just let me kill the asshole’ and Dorian didn’t want to hear that no matter what state he was in.   
  
“Come back to bed,” the Bull said.   
  
Dorian stared at him blankly.   
  
“Not right away,” the Bull added. “You go take a run around the battlements or blow up some of Cassandra’s practice dummies or whatever else you need to do, and when you’re ready to rest you come back here to do it. We’ll figure out the rest in the morning.”  
  
Dorian nodded sharply, and left without another word. He didn’t return until dawn, smelling of sweat and burning ozone. He fell asleep almost immediately, with his head pillowed on the Bull's chest, while the Bull looked up at his axe and contemplated the choices that had led him here.


	5. Chapter 5

He and Dorian did not speak of it again until much later. They barely spoke at all, about anything not directly related to the Siege of Adamant. The preparations had been too many and too pressing, and then the fighting had been too fierce, and then their physical visitation of the Fade overshadowed all else.  
  
The closest they came to speaking of it was this:  
  
“It’s the second time that’s been done in all of history. That’s not nothing, Solas.”  
  
“In all of _human_ history.”  
  
It was an opening, not one he’d planned to make, but one that existed nevertheless. Dorian didn’t take it.  
  
“The Fade is still a mystery to us humans, yes. Probably always will be.”  
  
“Perhaps it’s best it remain that way.”  
  
He could understand why Dorian would not want to claim the knowledge publicly. He had his dream of Tevinter reformed, and being elf-blooded would make it an already daunting task all but impossible. Solas resolved to lay the matter aside, and to not be disappointed in his decision.  
  
Which made it all the more surprising when the Inquisitor came to visit him one afternoon, looking a little more frazzled than usual, and said, “So.”  
  
“So?” Solas replied.  
  
“So,” Lavellan repeated, and whatever else she wanted to say seemed to get stuck.  
  
“If you required needle and thread, I’m afraid you’ve come to wrong place,” Solas replied. “I’m far better at painting than cross-stitching.”  
  
Lavellan snorted, before clarifying “So, _Dorian_.”  
  
Ah. Yes. Dorian.  
  
"He told you, then?” Solas asked.  
  
“Yeah, we’re figuring out how to best handle getting her away from Tevinter,” Lavellan replied. “It’s going to involve his father. I am not look forward to it, as I am ‘expressly forbidden’ from ‘punching, stabbing or any other form of non-self-defensive violence’. So.” She shrugged in dissatisfaction with what he would guess to be Dorian’s terms.  
  
There were certainly ways around those restrictions, should she particularly care to take them, but he suspected that she valued not having Dorian angry at her over punishing his father for being a terrible parent.  
  
“Is this not a conversation to be having _with_ Dorian?” Solas asked.  
  
“I’ll talk to him again later, when the urge to commit unwanted murder on his behalf has subsided,” she deferred. “And also when I’m more certain I’ll be able to have a conversation with him without calling him _da’len_ instead of Dorian.”  
  
Above them, Dorian gave an inelegant snort.  
  
Lavellan paused before saying, at very carefully the same volume she’d been speaking in this entire time. “Dorian, can you hear what we’re saying?”  
  
“As can every elf in the entire rotunda tower, Inquisitor,” Dorian replied.  
  
Lavellan sighed, before saying much more loudly. “Alright, show of hands, how many of you have been listening in whenever Solas and I speak?”  
  
He joined her in looking up as, one-by-one, a good dozen hands appeared over the railing, including Dorian’s.  
  
“You are all _assholes_ ,” the Inquisitor declared.  
  
“Well,” Solas said, a bit amused to realize that she hadn’t considered that the people on the floor above them might be able to hear. “I may have been the one to lead with ‘Fade-tongue’, but-”

Dorian snickered.  
  
“Hey Dorian,” Lavellan called up. “Have you requisitioned some new curtains for the Bull’s rooms yet?”  
  
“Ha!” Dorian replied. “You’re the seventh person to ask me that today, Inquisitor. At this point I’m plotting to open the job to auction and give the commission to the draper with the lowest bid.”  
  
“Personally, I think you’re very sweet,” said Leliana, startling them all a little. “It does people good, to see their leaders develop a closeness- I saw it with the Hero and Morrigan during the Blight, and I see it with you now.”  
  
Lavellan shifted uncomfortably, but said “Thank you, Leliana. I’ll take the comparison as a good sign.”  
  
Solas felt a pang of regret. There would be no happy ending for them, no future beyond that of the Inquisition, even. He would have to take the orb and run, and she would never know- she couldn’t know-  
  
If he were to tell her, would she even believe him? Would even she hear him out?

“I find your manner of flirtation preferable,” Leliana continued. “Unlike the Hero and his lover, you do not turn into giant spiders.”  
  
“What,” said Dorian flatly.  
  
“Giant spiders?” Lavellan asked, looking to him in confusion.  
  
“Skin-changing is a form of magic still practiced by the Chasind Wilders,” Solas told her.  
  
“I think they may have used it as a euphism, though for what, I could not say,” Leliana said despondently.  
  
“…I get the distinct impression that we should start having our flirtations elsewhere,” the Inquisitor muttered. “Perhaps my quarters?”  
  
Solas blinked. “Well-” That was as far as he got. After a few seconds for the elves to relay her words to their human companions, the occupants of the tower began to catcall them.  
  
“For those of you not able to see my hand,” the Inquisitor yelled, flashing the ‘v’ sign up towards the rookery. “I’d like you to know that you should fuck right the fuck off.”  
  
“Oooh,” seemingly the entire tower replied.  
  
“Worse than young hunters during an Arlathvhen matchmaking tourney, I swear to Andruil,” she muttered. “ _Garas aneth ara,_ whenever you feel like it Solas. I’ll see you later.”  
  
“ _Ma vhenan_ ,” he replied, and she left.  
  
About two minutes later, Dorian came down stairs and leaned against the scaffolding. Solas determinedly picked up his painting supplies and ignored him.  
  
“So, now that the secret’s out, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Dorian began, disregarding his nonverbal request for the illusion of solitude. “Is there any reason why you’re so reluctant to…”  
  
Solas sighed and fixed him with his most unimpressed look, the one he’d spent centuries of misspent youth perfecting. “Dorian, you and I have been getting along better as of late, but if _you_ attempt to give _me_ romantic advice I will be forced to take drastic measures.”  
  
“…fair enough,” Dorian replied, and pushed himself back upright with an eloquent shrug. He turned to leave, when Solas thought to stop him.  
  
“Speaking of secrets being out,” he said, letting his voice trail off when Dorian turned back around.  
  
“Yes?” Dorian demanded, jutting out his chin stubbornly.  
  
“People will be able to draw the correct conclusion from all of this,” he pointed out.  
  
“I …know,” Dorian said. “But it’s not as though it will be much of a secret, if we’re able to arrange for my mother to leave Tevinter. And if we’re not, it’ll almost certainly be the result of my father’s machinations, and I don’t- I don’t want it being swept under the rug. He shouldn’t get to pretend things are anything other than what they are.”  
  
“You want a witness,” Solas said, remembering his words in the tavern.  
  
“Indeed I do,” Dorian replied.  
  
It was a simple enough wish, and he would spare Dorian the stress of reminding him how much more difficult his life would be with his heritage being known. He knew that Dorian had some idea of what it would be like, but also that he wouldn’t know how constant the pressure would be. This wasn’t knowledge that could be hidden. There would be no option to pass as full human once it became known that he was not. He could not even consider putting on a proper front, no matter how loathsome he found that option. And even if Solas could find some way to warn him, to make him consider his warnings seriously, he wasn’t sure Dorian could be swayed.  
  
He didn’t want to sway him either. Dorian wished to do the right thing, and the right thing involved freeing a slave from captivity. That was commendable. It was a small thing in the grand scale of the world, but perhaps that would work out better for him that way, doing small right things rather than maneuvering around large masses in search of a greater good.  
  
“ _Ma nuvenin_ ,” Solas acceded.  
  
Dorian rolled his eyes. “I got confirmation of who my mother is, Solas. I didn’t grow an elvhen dictionary in my brain.”  
  
“And we’re all very grateful for it,” Solas retorted.  
  
Dorian huffed and left with a muttered parting shot of “ _Asine_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Elvhen**  
>  da'len- child  
> garas aneth ara- cobbled together from the elven on the DA wiki, I was aiming for "you're welcome in my space"  
> ma vhenan- my heart  
> ma nuvenin- as you wish
> 
>  **Tevene**  
>  asine- ass
> 
>  **Fun Fact**  
>  I almost submitted this with Leliana telling a story about F!Tabris, before I remembered that this story is actually in M!Surana's universe. Whoops.


	6. Chapter 6

Solas wasn’t avoiding Lavellan in the days following their return from the Arbor Wilds: he was merely avoiding the Vessel of Mythal. That the two were the same was but an unfortunate coincidence.

So when he heard Lavellan descend from the rookery, he put down his paints and prepared to leave the room. His resolve lasted as long as it took for her to stop by Dorian’s nook and speak to him.  
  
“Return to Tevinter?” Lavellan asked, startled.  
  
“Yes,” Dorian said.  
  
“What brought this on?” she demanded.  
  
“Our visit to the Temple of Mythal, of course. It was history, right there, staring us in the face,” Dorian said. “Maybe my people can… atone, for what they’ve done. Maybe they can change, instead of falling to stagnation and strife. There’s still something to restore, at least.”  
  
“What about your…” her voice trailed off.  
  
“My mother?” Dorian finished for her. “That’s another reason to go back home.”  
  
“I know that it’s taking time for Josie to open channels, but we are making progress.”  
  
“Not like that,” Dorian corrected her. “It’s… I know what you think of him, but by the standards of the Imperium, my Father is actually remarkably virtuous. And if _he_ can do _that_ , then- then things must be worse than I thought, the corruption must go deeper.”  
  
“What he did was not your fault,” Lavellan said firmly.  
  
“I know that,” Dorian replied. “Truly, I do. But I- I’m skeptical, that he’ll do anything to repair the damage he’s done- that he _realizes_ the damage he’s done- and it needs to be repaired, Inquisitor. This is something I need to do, for me, and for my people.”  
  
“I… understand,” she said, though it sounded like the sentiment pained her. “Do you want us to continue to work on bringing your mother here?”  
  
“Yes,” Dorian said. “If nothing else, I’d like to provide her with a place to go if she’s amenable to getting out from under my father’s thumb.”  
  
“And- Dorian, have you considered the difficulties, of having your mother here while-”  
  
“While I return to Tevinter trailed by the knowledge that she’s an elf?” Dorian finished for her bluntly. “Yes, of course.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And you managed to charm the court of Orlais, and you’re entirely an elf, and a Dalish elf at that,” Dorian pointed out. “I'm Andrastean, and only elf-blooded. I know it’ll only add fuel to the fire, but I’m good with fire, Inquisitor. I can handle myself.”  
  
"Don’t go back there alone,” Lavellan implored him.  
  
“Well, I’m certainly not going to ask you to leave all this behind,” Dorian told her.  
  
“Then ask the Bull,” Lavellan said.  
  
For a long time, Dorian was silent.  
  
“Elgar’nan, ask Sera then, I’m sure she’d love to shoot some Magisters and never discuss feelings,” Lavellan huffed finally.  
  
“I’m not sure what it is you’re imagining me doing, Inquisitor,” Dorian snorted. “But ideally it would end with Minrathous still intact.”  
  
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to bring someone on whose behalf you might become violent,” Lavellan said.  
  
Sometimes, Solas forgot that she was their leader for more reasons than her ability to care about such a diverse group of people and make them a- a clan, of sorts.  
  
“That’s… not entirely wrong,” Dorian conceded. “Anyway, I won’t leave until Corypheus is finished. I swore that I would see this through, and intend to keep my word.”  
  
“I never doubted you,” Lavellan reminded him.  
  
Dorian chuckled. “Maker, you should leave before we start dripping sap down on Solas’ frescos.”  
  
“Very well,” Lavellan conceded. “And, Dorian, for when you do leave? _Dareth shiral_.”  
  
She then jumped over the balcony railing and landed on the floor right in front of Solas before he could clear the room.  
  
“ _Festis bei umo canavarum_ ,” Dorian swore above them.  
  
“I believe you’ve told me to remind you that you’re getting old for that sort of thing,” Solas informed her as she got to her feet.  
  
“And I believe you’ve been avoiding me,” Lavellan replied, rolling her shoulders. “Well?”

She seemed… smaller and larger, both at once. The will of Mythal stood behind her, raw power to match the mark upon her hand, but it wasn’t her, nor was it under her control.  
  
It was quite possible that it would control her- would crush her, would change her. And she had submitted herself to it, while he-  
  
"Why did you do it?” he demanded. “I warned you not to!”  
  
“Solas…”  
  
“You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elven god!”  
  
“What does that mean, exactly?” she demanded.  
  
That was comforting. She had always had questions for him before.  
  
“You are Mythal’s creature now,” he told her. “Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her. You have given up a part of yourself.”  
  
“You don’t even believe in the Creators,” she pointed out.  
  
“I don’t believe they were gods, no, but I believe they existed,” he replied. He _knew_ they existed. He’d been one of them. “Something existed to start the legends.” Those twisted fragments of truth the Dalish told around their campfires. “If not gods, then mages, or spirits, or something we’ve never even seen.” Beings like himself- like Kieran, in his own way. Like the will imposed over Lavellan’s now. “And you are bound to one of them now.” As surely as the demons the Wardens had bound in Adamant, as he still feared Cole might one day be bound.

Like both she and Varric insisted Cole was too corporeal to be bound.

“I suppose it is better than you have the power, than Corypheus," he admitted. There were worse deities she might have given herself to, than the Goddess of Justice. She might have been bound to Andruil, or Ghilan’nain. “Which leads to the next logical question… what will you do with the power of the well when Corypheus is dead?”  
  
“This war has proven that things can’t go back to the way they were,” she told him. “I’ll try to help this world move forward.”  
  
She did not just mean the Circle, the Templars, the Chantry, the Orlesian Empire, the Wardens… not just the concerns the Inquisition had driven her to deal with. She meant her Clan, now part of Wycome’s government. She meant the People. She meant to change to way elves lived all over Thedas.  
  
“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better?” he asked. Clan Lavellan stilled lives. It would have been so easy for things to have gone otherwise. “What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find that the future you shaped is worse than what was?”  
  
“I’ll take a breath, see where things went wrong, and then try again,” she said calmly.  
  
“Just like that?”  
  
“If we don’t keep trying, we’ll never get it right,” she said.  
  
That was-  
  
He knew that he couldn’t go back, and make things as they were. But sometimes it felt like he would be forever attempting to undo past mistakes, forever hounded by his regrets. It’s what he had been doing for a very long time.  
  
He looked at her, this quickened elf with Dirthamen’s _vallaslin_ etched into her face, Mythal’s will clinging to her own, this woman who looked at the Dread Wolf without fear. She didn’t know who he was: there was no flash of recognition, no recriminations, no Justice reaching through her essence to reprimand him.  
  
He hadn’t been exposed. That didn’t mean he couldn’t tell her.

“You’re right," he realized. "Thank you.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“You’ve not been what I expected, Inquisitor, you’ve… impressed me.” _You’ve made me look forwards, rather than behind._ “You’ve offered hope that if one keeps trying, even if the consequences are grave, that someday, things will be better.”  
  
Dorian would save his mother, would return to Tevinter to right its wrongs. The Bull would not go mad, not with the Inquisition to serve as his purpose and his support. Blackwall would join the Wardens. Leliana would become Divine. Cassandra would not rest until the Tranquil had been cured.  
  
What might he become, if he were to tell her the truth?  
  
“Forgive my melancholy," he continued. "Corypheus has cost us much. The Temple of Mythal did not deserve such a fate.”  
  
“We could have learned so much,” Lavellan agreed.  
  
“The orb he carries, that stolen power… that, at least, we may still recover. With luck, some of the past might still survive.”  
  
With more than luck, with- with faith, perhaps, she might see it happen. They might restore the People to some of their former standing together.  
  
“You’re being grim and fatalistic in the hopes of getting me in bed, aren’t you?” she teased.  
  
“I _am_ grim and fatalistic. Getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit.” He paused, and then took a leap. “You mentioned that perhaps we should find another place for our flirtations?”  
  
“Yes, I did,” she said hopefully.  
  
He held out his hand. She took it. “Come with me, _vhenan_.”  
  
This would not be a conversation for others’ ears.


	7. Chapter 7

He had forgotten that he was a coward.   
  
Forgotten it until the time arrived to tell her the truth, and he faltered in the face of her regard. Because what if he told her, and she didn’t accept him. What if he told her, and she turned away?

So he told her a lesser truth: told her of the _vallaslin’s_ true meaning. She had been heartbroken, the scars of yet another piece of elven lore the Dalish had gotten wrong weighing upon her, and he thought _Perhaps it for the best, then, that I didn’t tell her. Even if she believed me, it would have caused her pain._  
  
He offered to remove it for her, and she refused. Whatever the _vallaslin_ had been before, its meaning had changed now: it was no longer a symbol of servitude, but one of freedom, of independence.   
  
_Perhaps I could do that,_ he thought. _Perhaps I could change as well._  
  
He was already Solas. It would be a simple enough matter to never be anything but Solas again. He could just remain with her, he could stop, take a deep breath, cease trying to undo what had gone wrong, and try again.   
  
The world was so different than it had been. Perhaps it could do without the Dread Wolf.   
  
Perhaps he was a lovesick fool.   
  
The world might be different, but it was not new, it was not disconnected from what had come before. Corypheus still wielded his orb, Kieran was still host to Urthemiel, and Lavellan was still bound to Mythal’s will. Sooner or later, a reckoning would come, even if it was not his.   
  
So he put an end to it, waving off all concerns and questions until they were back at Skyhold and there was nowhere else to retreat to.   
  
“So… later then?” she asked.   
  
“Yes,” he said. “When this is all over, I’ll explain everything.”  
  
It wasn’t quite a lie.   
  
Lavellan had barely left him alone for twenty minutes when he heard Dorian’s familiar tread down the stairs.   
  
“Do you to talk about-” he began.   
  
“Why would I _ever_ want to discuss such a personal matter with _you_ , of all people?” Solas snarled.   
  
A flash of hurt was evident on his face before it was carefully suppressed, and then Dorian arched an eyebrow.   
  
“Very well,” he acquiesced. “I’ll check on Lavellan then.”  
  
Solas turned deliberately away from him as he left, glaring at his frescos.   
  
It only occurred to him after Dorian had gone that just before he’d invited Lavellan on this ill-conceived romantic venture, Dorian had been unusual candid about himself. There was no room to conjecture with what he had said, nothing that needed speculation. He’d said the words plainly: _My mother is an elf. I’m elf-blooded._  
  
It was quite possible that he had been hoping to ask Solas about some of the reactions that had doubtlessly garnered.   
  
He turned back around, and found that someone had left a bottle of champagne on his desk. He took it, frowning as he read the label. It was the same vintage as the champagne he had enjoyed during their stay at the Winter Palace. Why would-  
  
“Wolves are pack animals,” Cole said quietly.   
  
Solas hadn’t heard him come in- an unusual event, since he’d confronted the Templar who had killed the first Cole.   
  
"You don’t have to do this alone,” he added.   
  
“I think I do,” Solas said. “No matter how I might wish otherwise… I have my task. I have to see this through, and it’s better that they not be caught up in it.”  
  
“You talk like you don’t have a choice,” Cole argued. “But you do.”  
  
“And I’ve made it.”  
  
“Then let them make it too. Let them know…” his voice trailed off, and he sighed, shoulders slumped. “This isn’t helping, is it?”  
  
“No. I’m afraid this is one of those things that cannot be helped, Cole, not even by you,” Solas said.   
  
Cole nodded dejectedly, and left him alone. Solas turned back to the bottle of champagne, and cursed every being that had ever been hailed as any sort of deity, none more so than himself.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a matter of pure chance, their meeting after he had fled the Inquisition. He thrummed with her power, more than he’d felt since he’d awoken, and the tiniest spindling tendrils that connected him to those who had pledged themselves to Mythal.  
  
Including _her_. Including Inquisitor Lavellan.  
  
This was not a power he’d ever wanted to hold over her, and so he’d taken refuge in a tavern, hoping for a distraction from the connection between them, now tangible in its imbalance. Magister Halward Pavus provided that distraction in spades.  
  
He was not recognized, not by the magister nor any of the other travelers. He kept his distance, nevertheless, and observed: he had traveled with two bodyguards that Solas could spot, and drank heavily, paying far too much for the bottle of absinthe that he had the bartender leave by his stool. His bodyguards had to carry him back to his room.  
  
Solas took his leave to his rooms shortly thereafter, and settled himself down on the bed. He was curious, about how the Inquisition was faring, and on what other business could the magister be found this far south but the Inquisition’s business?  
  
Well. He might have considered it a personal matter, but the Inquisitor would disagree with that assessment. Vehemently.  
  
He closed his eyes. Being a Dreamer had its advantages. So did having control over the essence of Mythal.

* * *

He found the memory he sought easily enough: a meeting with his son, at a tavern in Highever. The weight of it was heavy with the crushing regret at all that had lead him to becoming the sort of father whose son did not feel safe speaking to him without an escort.  
  
Solas’s mind attempted to assign familiar faces to the people surrounding them: Ritts and Jana sharing a drink, Helisma in the corner with Fiona and Clemence, Krem holding court with the Chargers in a side room. It was unlikely that they were there, however: it was, like as not, merely his own subconscious projecting familiar faces onto people who had no bearing on this event.  
  
Dorian was seated in a booth near the far side of the tavern, across from Lavellan, and nearly upon the Bull’s lap. That was unlikely to be how it happened when this meeting had actually taken place, Solas thought: it was far more likely that some closeness of body language gave their relationship away, and given the magister’s feelings on the subject, it now had a disproportionate emotional weight.  
  
“Father,” Dorian greeted him.  
  
“Dorian,” Magister Pavus returned, sitting down next to the Inquisitor without acknowledging her. “I was surprised to receive your letter.”  
  
“Yes, I expect you were,” Dorian replied.  
  
“It didn’t specify why you wanted to meet,” the magister said. When that failed to elicit a response, he added “I don’t suppose you wish to discuss arrangements for returning home.”  
  
“Not with you I don’t,” Dorian told him. “I’ve actually asked to meet you on behalf of my mother.”  
  
“Your mother?” Magister Pavus repeated, shocked.  
  
“Yes. The woman who gave birth to me,” Dorian clarified. “Mater.”  
  
Shock was the very least of what the magister felt at that proclamation. Solas could feel his mind sinking into another memory and indulged it, the room shifting into one that was clearly in Tevinter, occupied by a younger Halward, his resemblance to Dorian all the more apparent for his youth, a human woman, likely Lady Pavus, her face obscured by a wine glass, and an elven woman, her face downturned, a mole visible on her cheek, and from what could tell from the memory, otherwise bearing a striking resemblance to Halward.  
  
That must be her: Metrodora, mother of Dorian.  
  
“Oh, let’s not play coy,” Lady Pavus said from her reclining couch. “House Pavus requires an heir, and I cannot provide one. I presume she’s fit and intelligent? If I’m going to claim your elf-blooded bastard as my own, I’d prefer it if the child weren’t some crippled idiot.”  
  
They snapped some years and most of a continent forwards, back to the tavern in Highever, and for a moment Dorian’s appearance shifted dramatically. His cheekbones protruded, his ears and neck elongated, and his eyes glowed green despite the mid-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows.  
  
He looked, Solas thought uneasily, more human-blooded than human. Then, abruptly, Dorian’s appearance returned to normal, the only thing exaggerated about it the mulish expression he wore.  
  
“You know,” Halward said.  
  
“I know,” Dorian confirmed.  
  
“How?”  
  
“I’ve suspected it for some years now,” Dorian told him. “Recently, I had those suspicions confirmed. It’s nothing that would hold up in court, if that’s what you’re worried about. But it was enough to make me certain of what you did.”  
  
“And?” Halward challenged. “What now?”

“Now you do what you should have done twenty-five years ago when my magic manifested and you free her,” Dorian demanded.  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
“Yes, you can,” Dorian insisted.  
  
“We’re not ignorant of the difficulties in freeing a slave, Magister,” Lavellan interrupted. “So we’ve taken the liberty of arranging things for you. We have here an application for liberati status, and a speedy courier to take it to the embassy in Denerim. We have people in Tevinter. Once we have confirmation that everything has been filed and ordered well enough for government work, we’ll have them arrange transport for her. She can stay with the Inquisition, should she wish: we have need of a scribe who’s fluent in Tevene, and someone with experience tutoring, or with archival work. She’ll have her pick of positions, or else we’ll see to it that she’s situated in comfort elsewhere. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line.”  
  
She pulled out the paperwork, an inkwell, and a quill, arranging them in front of the magister.  
  
“You don’t understand,” Halward said. “What you are asking me for is beyond my power to give.”  
  
“And why is that?” Dorian asked.  
  
“Because,” Halward tried to steady himself, but his control was frayed, had been frayed long before he arrived here, and Solas could feel the individual strands snapping beneath the strain of this conversation. “She’s no longer mine.”  
  
“You _sold_ her?” Dorian yelped, and the Chargers came tumbling out of the side room, armed and ready.  
  
“Elgar’nan, calm down,” Lavellan snapped, though Solas would be very surprised to learn that she hadn’t been keeping a hand on her dagger since the magister had sat down.  
  
“You heard the boss,” the Bull added, and Halward swiveled around in alarm, suddenly noticing how many people there were in this tavern, and how many of them seemed to be watching them- watching _him_ \- intently.  
  
Perhaps those familiar faces weren’t a product of Solas’ memories after all.  
  
“Yes, Father, they know,” Dorian said icily. “They know we’re discussing my mother, and they know what you did.”  
  
There was a rush of lightheadedness so strong that had he not been already seated, Halward probably would have collapsed.  
  
“You told them,” Halward said.  
  
“I did,” Dorian replied.  
  
Control, control, control… there was none to be found, but Halward would never admit it. “Must you always create such a spectacle of yourself?”  
  
“Ha!” Dorian laughed bitterly. “Let’s stop lying, shall we, Father? This is a spectacle of your own making. I’ve just thrown back the curtain and let everyone see the mess you’ve made of things. Now, _where is she?_ ”  
  
“I don’t know, Dorian,” Halward said. He wanted to be annoyed. He wanted Dorian to be a petulant child with no real understanding of the sacrifices demanded of adulthood. He wanted to believe that was the case, rather than merely pretending it to be so.

“You don’t know,” Dorian repeated flatly. His fingers drummed on the table, electricity jumping from knuckle to knuckle in a calculated threat.  
  
“Perhaps,” Lavellan suggested. “You should tell us who you sold her to. Our agents can take it from there, and you can take your leave.”  
  
“You misunderstand,” Halward said. “I don’t know where she is because she wasn’t sold. She’s merely gone.”  
  
“Gone?” Dorian asked, going ashen. His hands stilled, one of them slipping down off the table and slotting into the Bull’s. Halward could see it, even though the table should have obscured the view, and it broke something in him.  
  
The tavern and its occupants flocculated wildly: robes and armor swapping back and forth between southern designs and Tevinter ones, Lavellan’s skin darkening, her _vallaslin_ disappearing until she strongly resembled Metrodora, the Bull first shrinking down to a near-human size before swelling to a larger and even more impressive one, and Dorian’s features sliding between elven and human at random.  
  
There was a memory that tugged at him: a garden, Metrodora and a young boy who must be Dorian. “ _Will I have magic when I grow up?_ ” he asked, and she replied. “ _You should. You’re Magister Pavus’ son._ ”  
  
And another memory: an office, Halward and Dorian only a few scant years younger than they currently were. “ _Get out. You’re no son of mine._ ”  
  
“When you say gone,” Dorian continued, and the environment resolved itself: the tavern, the meeting with Dorian, Lavellan, and the Bull, all of whom looked very much as they would in the waking world. The regret was back as well, sharp and grinding. “What do you mean, exactly?”  
  
Halward couldn’t bring himself to explain fully, not with an audience, even if Dorian had told them every detail. Instead, he echoed his son’s words back to him.  
  
“She found out. She left.”  
  
“Oh,” Dorian said.  
  
“Your moth- my wife had her freed,” Halward continued. “Just to spite me, I think. She claims that Metrodora was planning on heading south- to find you. I can tell you nothing more than that.”

* * *

 

Solas awakened before Magister Pavus and his escorts, and indeed before most of Kirkwall. He paid for the room and headed north.  
  
There was something had to do.  
  
No, that was a lie. There was something he wanted to do- something to bring closure to his time in the Inquisition.  
  
He would find Dorian’s mother, and guide her back to her son. It would be safer, in a way: heading north removed the temptation to travel east, where he might find himself in Wycome, speaking to members of her clan, perhaps even with her family, her children. This would be cleaner, simpler, easier: one last hurrah before he truly returned to being the Dread Wolf.  
  
Just this one thing, he would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As is probably obvious to those of you who have been able to play it, I've been planning this since before the release of Trespasser.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13696.html?thread=52972416#t52972416) prompt over on the kinkmeme, which reads:   
> "So, there is this concept art of Dorian. http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20141215194313/dragonage/images/c/c4/Inquisition_Dorian_concept_1.png  
> Is it just me or is his ear on the right oddly long and pointy?  
> Anyway, this gave me an idea.
> 
> What if Dorian's mother was actually not Lady Pavus but an elf? Halward and his wife tried to have a child for years but nothing. So, desperate for an heir, Halward goes against his morals and sleeps with one of their slaves. The slaves gets pregnant, everything is kept quiet and when Dorian is born he is passed off as Lady Pavus' son.
> 
> Who knows? Do they tell Dorian once he is old enough or does he have to find out on his own? How does it change things?
> 
> Gen is a-ok for this fic, but since this is the kmeme... if you want to include a pairing I'm rather fond of Dorian with Adaar/Cadash, Iron Bull, Solas, Rilienus or OCs (no slaves, former or otherwise!)."
> 
> We've apparently reached the point where I want to discuss Dorian's Mommy Issues along with Dorian's Daddy Issues, so here we are.


End file.
